18  Oral Reading Fluency

18.1 Task Description

Children are shown a passage and are asked to read aloud as fast and as accurately as they can within a two-minute time limit.

18.2 Construct

The Oral Reading Fluency task measures children’s ability to read smoothly, accurately, and quickly. This involves not just reading the words correctly but doing so in a way that sounds natural and conveys the meaning of the text.

18.3 Item Development

Two classrooms of second-grade students were asked about topics of interest for the ORF passages. Multiple topics emerged, but animals were a consistent topic across classrooms. Other proposed topics (e.g., famous actresses, musicians, and sportspeople) were excluded to avoid proper names. A total of nine passages on California animals were written in each language.

18.3.1 English

All passages were written to have a Lexile level of 410L-600L. This Lexile range was targeted based on the national standards for this grade, see ?tbl-item-design-orf_en. To ensure further comparability across texts, additional indicators were obtained using Lexile Text Analyzer (2024). These results are presented below.

  • Decoding: Easier texts have words with fewer syllables and simpler sounds (e.g., “net” and “shop”). Harder texts have words with more syllables and more complex sounds (e.g., “balloon” and “ceremony”). Ranges from 1-5. All passages were scored as Neutral (3/5)
  • Vocabulary: Easier texts have more common, familiar, and concrete words. Harder texts have more rare, unfamiliar, and abstract words. Ranges from 1-5. Five passages were scored as Neutral (3/5), and four were scored as Difficult (4/5)
  • Sentences: Easier texts have shorter sentences and more words that overlap between sentences. Harder texts have longer sentences and fewer words that overlap between sentences. Ranges from 1-5. All passages were scored as Difficult (4/5).
  • Patterns: Easier texts have more repeated words and phrases. Harder texts have fewer repeated words and phrases. Ranges from 1-5. Two passages were scored as Difficult (4/5) and seven were scored as Very Difficult (5/5).

18.3.2 Spanish

Like in English, all passages were written to have a Lexile level of 410L-600L. To ensure further comparability across texts, additional indicators were obtained using Legible (Legible 2024). For the text statistics and average, see Table 18.1.

Table 18.1: Spanish Passages Statistics
Blue Belly
Lizard		 Sea
Lion		 Kit Fox Raccoon Grizzly
Bear		 Quail Condor White Shark Banana
Slug		 Average
Text legibility - Value
Fernández Huerta 91.92 84.62 86.56 85.69 90.2 88.43 88.54 84.32 85.83 87.35
Gutiérrez 52.56 48.16 49.24 49.42 50.81 50.25 51.51 47.81 49.11 49.87
Szigriszt-Pazos 87.89 80.43 82.18 81.65 86.14 84.34 84.67 79.94 81.93 83.24
INFLESZ 87.89 80.43 82.18 81.65 86.14 84.34 84.67 79.94 81.93 83.24
legibility μ 87.85 91.6 75.68 89.32 83.1 88.97 89.87 96.37 74.95 86.41
Text legibility - Difficulty
Fernández Huerta very easy easy easy easy very easy easy easy easy easy
Gutiérrez normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal normal
Szigriszt-Pazos very easy easy easy easy very easy easy easy easy easy
INFLESZ very easy easy very easy easy easy easy very easy easy very easy
legibility μ easy very easy a little easy easy easy easy easy very easy a little easy
Estimated grade (Crawford): 2.9 3.5 3 3.3 3.2 3.3 3.2 3.7 3.4 3.28
Estimated time of reading: 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.9 1 1 1.1 0.9 0.9 0.93
Text statistics
characters 904 997 871 970 1042 1107 1148 1036 1067 1015.78
letters 699 785 689 761 816 866 895 822 843 797.33
syllables 303 327 290 323 344 366 389 341 350 337
words 171 173 154 172 193 202 214 181 190 183.33
phrases 19 19 20 20 19 20 23 18 20 19.78
paragraphs 3 3 2 4 4 5 5 5 4 3.89
letters per word 4.09 4.54 4.47 4.42 4.23 4.29 4.18 4.54 4.44 4.36
syllables per word 1.77 1.89 1.88 1.88 1.78 1.81 1.82 1.88 1.84 1.84
words per sentence 8.55 8.65 7.33 8.19 9.62 8.92 9.53 9.05 8.73

18.4 Scoring

The final score consisted of a rate between the number of accurately read words (i.e., the total number of words read minus the incorrectly read words) divided by the total allocated time (per second) of two minutes or the total time it took the child to read the whole passage, if under two minutes.

18.5 Samples

Table 18.2: Demographic Characteristics of Samples for the English and Spanish Oral Reading Fluency Tasks
Characteristic
English
Spanish
G1
N = 314		 G2
N = 774		 G1
N = 280		 G2
N = 337
Timepoint



    Fall 2024 30 (100%) 469 (100%) 0 (NA%) 114 (100%)
    Unknown 284 305 280 223
Administration Format



    Not applicable 314 (100%) 774 (100%) 280 (100%) 337 (100%)
Race



    American/Alaskan Native 7 (2.3%) 19 (2.6%) 4 (1.4%) 6 (1.8%)
    Asian 42 (14%) 77 (11%) 23 (8.2%) 8 (2.4%)
    Black/African American 32 (11%) 81 (11%) 10 (3.6%) 7 (2.1%)
    Not reported 45 (15%) 129 (18%) 58 (21%) 116 (35%)
    Other 61 (20%) 94 (13%) 108 (39%) 24 (7.2%)
    White 114 (38%) 330 (45%) 77 (28%) 174 (52%)
    Unknown 13 44 0 2
Ethnicity



    Hispanic/Latin(o/a) 184 (60%) 534 (74%) 226 (81%) 307 (91%)
    Intentional nonreport 3 (1.0%) 5 (0.7%) 3 (1.1%) 1 (0.3%)
    Not Hispanic/Latin(o/a) 119 (39%) 187 (26%) 49 (18%) 28 (8.3%)
    Unknown 8 48 2 1
Gender



    Female 151 (53%) 346 (48%) 150 (54%) 173 (51%)
    Male 135 (47%) 368 (52%) 128 (46%) 163 (49%)
    Unknown 28 60 2 1
Home Language



    English 163 (63%) 390 (59%) 101 (36%) 78 (23%)
    Spanish 77 (30%) 237 (36%) 170 (61%) 251 (75%)
    Other 18 (7.0%) 34 (5.1%) 9 (3.2%) 4 (1.2%)
    Unknown 56 113 0 4
English Proficiency Label



    (Re-)Classified Proficient 7 (4.1%) 50 (7.8%) 31 (12%) 33 (10%)
    English Learner 64 (38%) 217 (34%) 134 (51%) 223 (68%)
    English-only 98 (58%) 372 (58%) 96 (37%) 73 (22%)
    Unknown 145 135 19 8
Ever IEP/504 13 (6.3%) 84 (16%) 21 (8.8%) 29 (9.9%)
    Unknown 109 242 42 45

18.6 Score distribution

Figure 18.1: Score Distribution of the English and Spanish Oral Reading Fluency Tasks

18.7 Criterion Validity Evidence

18.7.1 Sample

Table 18.3: Demographic Characteristics of the Concurrent Criterion Validity Evidence Samples for the English and Spanish Oral Reading Fluency Tasks
Characteristic
English
Spanish
G2
N = 297		 G2
N = 241
Timepoint

    Spring 2024 297 (100%) 241 (100%)
Race

    American/Alaskan Native 4 (1.3%) 4 (1.7%)
    Asian 28 (9.4%) 3 (1.3%)
    Black/African American 34 (11%) 4 (1.7%)
    Not reported 84 (28%) 112 (47%)
    Other 21 (7.1%) 13 (5.4%)
    White 126 (42%) 103 (43%)
Ethnicity

    Hispanic/Latin(o/a) 192 (65%) 216 (90%)
    Intentional nonreport 1 (0.3%) 2 (0.8%)
    Not Hispanic/Latin(o/a) 103 (35%) 23 (9.5%)
    Unknown 1
Gender

    Female 151 (51%) 139 (58%)
    Male 146 (49%) 102 (42%)
Home Language

    English 175 (59%) 55 (23%)
    Spanish 92 (31%) 178 (75%)
    Other 28 (9.5%) 4 (1.7%)
    Unknown 2 4
English Proficiency Label

    (Re-)Classified Proficient 37 (13%) 36 (15%)
    English Learner 82 (28%) 149 (63%)
    English-only 174 (59%) 52 (22%)
    Unknown 4 4
Ever IEP/504 19 (10%) 18 (9.0%)
    Unknown 110 42
    Unknown
2

English Oral Reading Fluency was correlated with the Oral Reading subtest from the Woodcock-Johnson IV (WJ IV ACH) test (Schrank, McGrew, and Mather 2014). Spanish Oral Reading Fluency was correlated with the Lectura Oral subtest from the Batería IV Woodcock-Muñoz (Batería IV APROV) test (Woodcock et al. 2019).

Table 18.4: Concurrent Criterion Validity Correlations for the English and Spanish Oral Reading Fluency Tasks
English
Spanish
All
EL
All
Grade n r [CI] n r [CI] n r [CI]
G2 297 0.11 [-0.01, 0.22] 82 0.25 [0.03, 0.44] 241 0.13 [0.00, 0.25]